Heat clobbered on boards, 7-7 on road after loss in Indy

INDIANAPOLIS — A team that needs a little R&R got neither Tuesday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

No rebounds.

No road relief.

For the Miami Heat, the rebounding & road struggles continue.

Now 7-7 on the road after this 87-77 loss to the Indiana Pacers, the Heat again were pummeled on the boards, this time outrebounded 55-36.

"They grinded us to a near halt offensively," coach Erik Spoelstra said after his team scored 35 second-half points, with the 77 a season low.

And then there was the rebounding deficit, an ongoing theme, the seventh time the Heat have been outrebounded by 15 or more this season.

"At some point," Spoelstra said, "enough will be enough for us.

"At some point, we'll get pushed to the brink."

Forward LeBron James said the team already is at that rebounding precipice.

"We want to defend and we want to clean the glass," he said, the Heat meeting the first of those two challenges by limiting Indiana to .363 shooting.

James said it has already reached Spoelstra's "brink."

"Oh, it has," he said. "And we still keep getting outrebounded. It's reached the point. We can't get a rebound.

"We're out there busting our tails," he said, "and every time we would get a stop, it seemed like we'd give up second-chance points."

Unable to compensate with their offense -- with Ray Allen and Shane Battier again off on a night they shot a combined 0 for 8 -- the Heat failed on a night Dwyane Wade scored 23 points in the first half and James reached 20 points for the 33rd time in as many games this season.

Wade said rebounding remains the ultimate priority.

"We've got to figure it out as a team, together," he said. "You hold a team to 36-percent shooting, your first line of defense is good."

And then the Pacers came up with 23 second-chance points, getting 23 more shot attempts than the Heat.

When it came to second chances, Wade had his own issue. After scoring his 23 first-half points, his high for any half this season, he did not get any shots in the third quarter and only four in the second half.

"I'm playing team basketball," Wade said in a tone that made it clear he had other thoughts.

In fact when asked about cooling off in the second half, he responded, "I cooled off?"

Spoelstra said it was a matter of the Pacers stepping up their defense.

"They did a good job of bottling up the first and second looks of our sets," he said. "We were not very fluid offensively, didn't really help each other."

Wade closed with 30 points, but it wasn't enough on a night Pacers forward Paul George outscored James 29-22, as George continues to emerge amid the injury absence of Pacers forward Danny Granger.

"He's evolved," Spoelstra said of George, who spent part of the summer working out with James.

Pacers coach Frank Vogel gushed about the defensive job George did.

"Paul George is becoming the best defensive wing in the game," he said.

In the opposite locker room, even as Spoelstra continues to insist his team "has enough" when it comes to rebounding, it is becoming increasingly clear that simply is not the case.

Not when all three Pacers frontcourt players reached double digits in rebounds, their 36 matching the Heat's entire total. It is the reason Chris Andersen and Jarvis Varnado are soon expected to become members of the Heat.

The third quarter, in particular, was a disaster for the Heat. After pushing to a 51-44 lead with 8:23 to play in the period, the Heat scored just six points the balance of the period.

"We relaxed defensively and they got right back into it," Spoelstra said.

The Pacers shot 5 of 8 on 3-pointers in the third, including one from power forward David West.

All the while, Wade went without a shot -- and point -- in his 8:55 of court time in the third period. The Pacers outrebounded the Heat 14-5 in the third, holding a 43-26 edge on the boards going into the fourth.

The first half closed tied 42-42.

Wade, whose previous outing in Indiana was the Heat's Game 6 clincher in the Eastern Conference semifinals, closed the first half 8 of 12 from the field including three 3-pointers in the second quarter, and then was fouled late in the period on a 3-point attempt, draining all three foul shots.

And then Wade stopped, the rebounds never arrived, and it was over, an ominous start to a six-game trip that makes its next stop Thursday against the Portland Trail Blazers.